Garry McCarthy

Early Life & Law enforcement career

McCarthy was born and raised in the Bronx. He attended Cardinal Spellman High School and graduated in 1977. In 1981, he graduated from SUNY Albany with a BA in History.

New York Police Department

McCarthy joined the New York City Police Department in 1981 at age 22. He rose through the ranks and became Deputy Commissioner of Operations in 2000. McCarthy was in the middle of ground zero during the September 11 attacks, working closely with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to operate an emergency response command post. While with the NYPD, he held a variety of positions around the city, was commander of several different precincts, and eventually was in charge of the NYPD's CompStat program.

Newark Police Department

In 2006, McCarthy left his position with the New York Police Department to take over the Police Department of Newark, New Jersey. He was chosen for this role by Mayor Cory Booker, and appeared with Booker in the documentary series Brick City. McCarthy presided over a sharp reduction in crime during his tenure in Booker's administration in Newark with homicides declining 28 percent, shootings declining 46 percent, and overall crime declining 21 percent.

Chicago Police Department

McCarthy was hired by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to take over the Chicago Police Department shortly after Emanuel's election in early 2011. McCarthy was the City of Chicago's highest paid public employee, earning an annual salary of over $260,000. The number of crimes and murders in Chicago declined under his tenure (with murders declining from 525 in 2011 to 505 in 2012 to 415 in 2013). In an investigative article by Chicago Magazine reporters David Bernstein and Noah Isackson, it was asserted that the decline was in part due to the unjustified re-categorization of murders as undetermined and then if it is later determined to be a murder, tallying the total to the prior years' statistics. McCarthy responded that the article is “patently false” and criticized its reliance on anonymous sources. A 2012 audit by the Chicago Inspector General determined that the Chicago Police Department had under-counted aggravated assault and aggravated battery victims by 25 percent by not following state guidelines by counting each incident rather than each victim. McCarthy attributed the error to the administration of the prior police superintendent, Jody Weis. McCarthy was terminated by Rahm Emanuel following the fall out from the shooting of Laquan McDonald.